Stalin's Later Rule Flashcards
What is totalitarianism?
A political system that demands absolute obedience to the state and that every citizen is subject to central state authority meaning individual freedoms and rights cannot exist and all forms of human expression are dictated by the state and everything individual is submerged into one mass identity
How did Stalin tighten his grip after WW2?
Wartime institutions dismantled and the GKO (State Defence Committee) dissolved in September 1945, military hierarchy downgraded with Marshal Zhukov demoted to a minor command at Odessa
What do historians believe about High Stalinism?
This term is usually applied to Stalin’s later years but many historians have taken the view that developments post 1945 were not really new but a reversion to what happened in the 1930s, some said High Stalinism began 1934 after murder of Kirov
How did Hitler continue to play leading figures off against each other after 1945?
Men like Molotov and Beria and Zhdanov and Malenkov and Mikoyan came in and out of favor according to Stalins whims and the scheming of their rivals. When Zhdanov challenged policy of Malenkov Mikoyan set up an investigation which condemned Malenkov’s actions, Malenkov lost position as Party Secretary and Zhdanov became Stalin’s closest advisor until Malenkov and Beria engineered his political downfall in 1948. Molotov fell out of favour 1949
Who was Georgii Malenkov? 8 points
Rose through party ranks from 1924 when he was put in charge of keeping files on party members in the Orgburo, took part in show trials and purges, joined Politburo 1941, supervised aircraft production during war, after 1945 worked with Beria on rockets and atomic weapons, bitter opponent of Zhukov, 1948 with Beria organised purge of party leadership in Leningrad, briefly leader of USSR after death of Stalin but displaced by kruschchev backed by Zhukov and army
Who was Anastas Mikoyan? 5 points
Only old Bolshevik to remain high in governing elite of Lenin, Stalin and successors, met Stalin during civil war and backed him in power struggle, joined politburo 1935, member of GKO during war, saved from Stalin’s purges by Stalin’s death
Who was Vyacheslav Molotov? 9 points
Leading figure in government from 1920s but had greater role under Stalin, Chairman of the council of the People’s Commissars 1930-41, minister of foreign affairs 1939-49 and 1953-56, member of MRC before Oct Rev, member of central committee 1921, member of politburo 1926, appointed first secretary of the Moscow communist party 1928, oversaw collectivisation and first FYP, signed 373 execution lists during great purges (even more than Stalin)
Who was Andrei Zhdanov?
Feb 1934 transferred to Moscow as a Secretary of the Central Committee, succeeded Kirov Dec 1934 as First Secretary of the Leningrad Provisional Party, 1935 he and head of Leningrad NKVD Zavosky deported 11,072 Leningrad ‘aristocrats’
Who was Lavrenty Beria? 7 points
Chief of NKVD during WW2 and chief of soviet security and state security administrator, joined politburo 1946, responsible for 1939 Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officials/criminals, administered vast expansion of gulags, oversaw soviet bomb project, became First Deputy Chairman of Council of ministers and head of Ministry of Internal Affairs after Stalin’s death, formed a Troika with Malenkov and Molotov and briefly led country
Describe the renewed terror post 1945 in 7 points
Stalin ruthlessly enforced isolation from non soviet world partly our of concern for national security at time of emerging Cold War but also due to obsessive fear of ideological contamination, harsh treatment of political prisoners returned from war, former army officers purged even relatives of those who had spent time outside of USSR and anyone with knowledge of world outside, within USSR especially newly incorporated areas eg Baltic States people needed to show unwavering loyalty as a careless word/brief contact with a foreigner could get a person denounced/arrested/sent to gulag, friends/colleagues were possible informers, Feb 1947 law passed outlawing marriages to foreigners, hotels/restaurants/embassies under surveillance with police watching for meetings between soviet girls and foreign men
Describe the NKVD under Beria
NKVD strengthened and reorganised as two separate ministries: MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) controlled domestic security and gulags, MGB (Ministry of State Security, forerunner of KGB) handled counter intelligence and espionage, far fewer people killed than during Great Terror but tens of thousands arrested annually for ‘counter-revolutionary’ activities, around 12 million wartime survivors sent to labour camps
Describe the zhdanovschina in 11 points
Andrei Zhdanov coordinated great cultural purge launched by Stalin in 1946 due to his fear of spread of ‘bourgeois and decadent’ western values because of the war, began with purge of two literary works published in Leningrad (The Adventures of a monkey by Zoschenko and a collection of poems by Anna Akhmatova), the publishers purged and authors expelled from Union of Soviet Writers, Boris Pasternak condemned for apolitical poems and his girlfriend sent to gulag, socialist realism reasserted as the norm in all art forms, Sergei Eisenstein oil director condemned for Ivan the Terrible film because tsar’s bodyguards portrayed as thugs not a ‘progressive army’, condemned artists had to make public recantations of their errors to continue working, novels/plays/films that denigrated American commercialism and extolled soviet achievements and Stalin cult favoured, many jewish artists suppressed and jewish newspapers closed down, Shostakovich and Prokofiev composers removed from their teaching posts and found it difficult getting their work performed for ‘anti-socialist tendencies’, arts/science/scholarship victimised giving Trofim Lysenko dominance over Academy of Sciences, non communist newspapers/radio stations unobtainable, only pro soviet writers/artists allowed into USSR and few soviets allowed abroad
What was the Leningrad affair? 7 points
Stalin always took care to prevent politicians with power base in Leningrad from becoming too powerful (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kirov), Zhdanov pushed aside in 1948 due to his power base in Leningrad and Stalins resentment for Leningrad’s pride in its heroic role in the great siege, 1949 Stalin followed up removal/death of Zhdanov with purge of Leningrad party, many Leningraders had been promoted to senior posts in Moscow during Zhdanov’s ascendancy eg Nikolai Voznesenski economic expert and rising star in Politburo), major purge of leading officials whose accusations were organised by Malenkov and Beria, all executed Oct 1950, by that time more than 2000 officials from city dismissed from posts/exiled/replaced by pro Stalin communists
Describe the purges which followed the Leningrad affair in 6 points
Aimed to set rival elements within the party against each other, ‘Mingrelian Case’ (Georgian Purge) launched 1951 targeted party officials in Georgia accused of collaboration with Western powers, these officials were mostly Mingrelians (ethnic group in Georgia) who were followers of Beria who was of Mingrelian origin, case hadn’t been settled by Stalin’s death March 1953 but served its purpose in that it limited Beria’s power, non-Russian nationalities suppressed, anti-semtic overtones as Mingrelians were charged with having conspired with ‘jewish plotters’
What was the Doctors’ Plot?
‘Conspiracy’ revealed by Lydia Timashuk (female doctor and secret police informer) accusing doctors who treated Zhdanov 1948 of sloppy methods which contributed to his death, 1952 Stalin used file as excuse to arrest many doctors for being part of a ‘Zionist’ (code word for jewish) conspiracy to murder Zhdanov and other leading officials, Stalin claimed jewish doctors in pay of US and Israel abused positions in order to harm USSR, conspiracy supposedly infiltrated Leningrad Party and Red Army
